


Papier Mâché

by backintimeforstuff



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s06e13 The Wedding of River Song, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Season/Series 06, an extended version of the train sequence basically, the wedding of river song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25076719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/backintimeforstuff/pseuds/backintimeforstuff
Summary: With the universe as it is, the probability of Amy Pond and her raggedy Doctor ever meeting again is next to nothing.But there's always hope. And there's always coincidence.Set during the Wedding of River Song.
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor/Amy Pond
Kudos: 10





	Papier Mâché

If Amy’s being entirely honest, papier mâché has never lived up to her expectations.

Countless botched school projects come to mind, and memories of sticky fingers aren’t helping matters. Through the gloom of her office, she glances with some distaste at the pile of newspapers waiting to be used, a floury odour meeting her nostrils before she’s even touched anything. To high heaven, she’d rather be doing anything else right now. But then again, it seems to be the end of the world. So, to hell with it.

Almost ironically, just like papier mâché, Amy’s all too familiar with the end of the world. While her subconscious might protest at the thought, she seems to have countless memories of it – of the last time, of the stars burning out in the sky, and his ship in unsalvageable fragments. At the end of it all, the perfect prison turned out to be the remedy for everything, but she smiles almost wryly at that. Very nearly, everything.

If she lets herself be vain enough, she can put a claim on saving the world too. It was her, after all, that brought the Doctor back, right from the other side of the crack into shining reality; with his stupid grin and obnoxious coat tails. She doesn’t usually let it get to her, or let _him_ get to her, but considering the current circumstances, letting him get to her might be the only chance they have. Just like last time, he seems to have vanished off the face of the earth, or at least, all memory of him has. It’s slowly disappearing, fading out of existence with every single lost second on the hands of a broken clock, and well, she’s not having it.

That’s where the papier mâché comes in. 

The most important thing left in the universe is that she remembers him, and everything they’ve ever done together. And while she prides herself on having a memory like a database, hard-copy and a couple of models never hurt anyone. Over a thousand years of time and space are about to come alive at her fingertips, so she hopes she doesn’t run out of glue.

\--- 

Late into the night, when she’s sure the guards have gone off shift, Amy starts with the TARDIS. As newspaper strips go, making a box isn’t too much trouble, and she supposes the more, philosophical reasons, influence her choice too. She could get caught up to the ends of the earth with all the villains and the planets, but in the scheme of things, they’re sort of not the point. The point is _him_ , that ridiculous man, with his impossible preposterous time machine. It seems to symbolise everything he is, and exactly what he stands for. For the first fourteen years of waiting, that little blue box was the only real memory had of him – and even if he turns up and teases her for her sentimentality, she’s not about to criticise. Knuckles deep in newspaper, she’s way past that. She just wants to see him again. She wants to see him light up an entire room, win over her with his glowing smiles and his stupid hugs. More than anything else she just wants to throw herself at him – to feel his scratchy tweed under her fingertips for what would feel like the first time in forever.

Through the lamp light, she casts a hopeful smile down to the blue paint she’s just cracked open. Oh, that brand new, ancient blue box of his. She’s positively counting on it.

\--- 

Perhaps in the long run though, it means too much. For once it dries, she just stares at it. It sits on the corner of her desk for days, unmoving – waiting – almost daring its artist to make a move. A week passes, and Amy’s sure the guards are starting to talk – whispering amongst themselves about the girl with the funny blue box on her table. Any other day, any other time, well, she supposes the thought might make her laugh. But it’s 5:02 pm on 22nd April, and it’s a bit too late for that. She can’t seem to shake the lump at the back of her throat every time it meets her gaze, every time she starts to think of him. The glaring finality of time itself punctures every waking moment, and as she stares into the golden glow of sunset, she cries because such a spectacle has ended up meaning next to nothing. 

Almost in rage – it catches. _Everything_ is supposed to mean something. She knows that’s what he’d say – that wonderful imaginary raggedy man of hers – if he was here. He’d step right up to her, almost touching, the sun turning his eyes to gold. He’d say he’d never stand for it – and deep down, she knows. The sun and all the stars are supposed to mean everything – more than any calculable wealth on any world she can think of. Space and time are priceless, just like he is. That ridiculous man with his eyes like fire – there is nothing, and no one, that means more to her. She’s lost count of how many days she’s spent without him, but tonight, they add up to enough.

In a matter of seconds, she’s back at the table – casting an eye at the little blue box. The lump in her throat threatens to rise, but she counters it, rummaging through drawers, for pens, and colours, for anything and everything she can find. She’s got it completely in her head now, the fairy-tale that needs to be told, the words she has to find him with. She scratches a date out on the first piece of lined paper.

_Wednesday, 3rd April 1996._

Day one. 

\--- 

For something that feels like millions of years ago, Amy remembers everything about the night she met the Doctor. In her mind’s eye, clear as day, he’s falling out of the sky in a ball of fire – coughing up starlight and asking her name. Her pen flows in the dusk and the more she’s convinced – it was the the look in his eyes that did it. The bright curiosity that stopped at nothing to take her breath away, and that very first smile; the one where he bounded up from the grass and told her completely to trust him, well, she was beyond captivated by then.

About halfway down the third page – right around the bit about carrots and fish fingers and custard - she freezes. As much as the memory is making her want to laugh and cry at exactly the same time; she’s realised she’s stopped writing for everyone else’s sake. No longer is it a story to sell to the masses – and truth be told it’s not even a story for her. It’s for him. She might as well pen an inscription to him on the very first page, because that’s how personal it feels, deep down, in a way she can’t even begin to describe. Almost as confirmation, the words on the paper glisten back at her.

_You always knew I wasn’t scared._

Almost unknowingly, she’s started writing to him. 

It’s long been a tradition for Amy to address the absentee at a feast, but as far as fixing time goes, she’s way past that. She’s stopped considering all the implications, necessities, and everything else that fights to gain entry to her subconsciousness. Looking down at the lines on the page; it’s just him, and her, and all the time left in the world. In this state, to him, well, she could write forever. She could write for days and days on end trying to catch up on all the things she should have said; all the things she’s missed, and all the things they’ve missed, together. The days that never came fight to make her stop and think, but she declines them their power, staring in determination through the dark. This one-way conversation at the very end of days is the most important thing left in the universe, and she’s not about to waste time mulling over all the things that could have been. After all, if she pulls this off, they might just happen anyway.

Despite being spurred on by a thousand sunsets, elbows deep in papier mâché, it’s the writing that does it. It’s the words on the page, simplicity at its finest, that makes her miss him the most. One word, and she’s off – colliding off the side of some kind of metaphorical waterfall – memories crashing towards her faster than the tears she can begin to wipe away. So much for thinking of apples, yogurts, or cracks in time, it’s almost as if his face becomes them – staring back at her without ever being there at all. She’s one line away from grappling at the page itself, trying to reach him a world of pen ink and tear stains. God, she’s convinced she’s going mad.

If he ever knew, if he ever saw her like this, all teary eyed and weeping, well, she’s sort of glad he can’t. She doesn’t want to think about the look of absolute sorrow that would come first, or the sympathy that would come after. She knows all too well that he’d make a point of consoling her, gazing straight into her eyes and telling her that only the bravest have the furthest to fall. It’s what she’s afraid of – at least, for his sake. At the end of the world, they can’t both afford to let their guard down. 

As complete darkness descends, she lets her gaze drift slowly down to the table top. Her writing is nothing but a haze, a jumble of memories and rhetorical questions, alongside a river of unceremonious pleading. She doesn’t know whether it calms her to know she’s never really grown out of it - pleading to that magic Doctor of hers. He’d frown, reading it – she knows that. Pen in hand, he’d make a point of crossing out all the things he disagrees with – all of the self-pity and the anecdotes he remembers the other way around. She imagines his handwriting is just as ridiculous and loopy as he is – all unreadable and remarkable at the same time.

She’s lost track of what time it is now. It could be anywhere from late evening the early hours, and all Amy knows is that she’s exhausted. The ludicrously of constant time never fails to get to her, and regardless of how easy it is to remember _5:02 pm_ , she’s never going to settle for it. She knows he never would. The tears have dried hours ago, but the feeling still remains, the relentless heaviness of it all dragging her down harder than she’d care to admit. After all, it’s not doing either of them any favours, sitting here wallowing like this. With a final sigh, she takes the sheaves of paper and shoves them in the desk drawer. She hopes tomorrow, or the day after that, will be enough.

\--- 

Two days later, daylight streams. The train clatters back and forth between the pyramids, and all Amy can do is think. As much as she hates to admit it, in the last days of the universe, writing to the Doctor isn’t helping. In the lap of the Gods, it’s insanity-inducing, the multiple timelines almost tipping her over the edge. She doesn’t know just how many more days she can labour over them, picking out endless detail from days and weeks she’s not even sure she’s lived.

Then, without warning, it happens. She’s not sure whether it’s the particular beam of sunlight that reminds her of it, of the rage in his eyes, and the fire at the end of the universe. Perhaps it’s just the repetitive memories that have done it – her mind wondering over the loving and losing of everyone lost to the split in the skin of the world.

Almost in a daze, his words come to her. 

_Whatever holds the image of angel, is an angel._

Metaphor or not, it’s enough.

\--- 

She ransacks her desk for anything she can find; sheets of blank paper and fistfuls of colour pencils. She’s never paid much attention to drawing things, but the power pictures seem to have now is infinite. It’s a real chance to sort through the kaleidoscope of memories inside her mind, and bring as many to life as she can manage. 

Pirates, the Pandorica, it doesn’t seem to matter – everything reminds her of him. Be it the good days or the bad nights, the escapade and the starlight, she’d walked up mountains with that man before, watched the sunrise to last lifetimes, and she never wants it to stop.

It’s almost funny, she thinks, sketching scenes of nightmare, caught up to the ends of the Earth, because he’d only turn around and laugh. He’d gaze with admiration at hand-drawn Silurians, casting eyes over line-work and the like. She can see him now, just standing. He’d make a point of marking out the best of things, all the days they ever had together, and all the days they ever will. He’d start by marvelling at the stars she’s drawn here, the first spaceship they ever saw together, and the first time he almost lost her. He’d take her by the hand and call her _his Amelia_ , in that stupid voice she’s come to love. He’d twirl her around, making the pages flutter.

And just as she’s about to condemn herself, shake her head in disbelief because _pretending gets you nowhere_ , he comes to her. Eyes shining bright gold as if she can see them, his voice is clear.

_Hoping, Amelia. Hoping gets you everything._

In the darkness of her office, Amy suppresses a laugh. He’s always been a big fan of hope, that ridiculous man. Swinging by calamities with an outlandish grin, staring down monsters for just for the hell of it. She knows better than anyone – he never has a plan. He just has hope. That spur of the moment hope, that gleam in his eyes that tells everyone in the room to run for the lives; hold on tight and never let go, even when the skies begin to shatter. Hoping can save the whole universe, and Amy knows all too well that it has done. Hoping can do the world of good, and in the right hands, well, it can be unstoppable.

There’s only one thing that catches.

This Doctor of hers, this imaginary, fictional one that comes to her, he’s nothing like the real thing at all.

He’s telling her what she wants to hear, and frankly, the real Doctor never does that. The real Doctor wouldn’t come and sweep her off her feet and the stroke of midnight, for he’s running fourteen years late already. To hell with the locked drawers and the hushed voices, the cried tears in the dead of night – if she wants to find him, the real him, the one that dropped out of the sky before offering it right back at her, well, she’ll have to do more that hope.

She’ll have to run wild, go crazy, stick memories to walls and windows just to one up them before they can escape. If she wants to change the world then she’ll have to believe in it – there’s no backing down and there’s no walking away. Doing battle with the universe isn’t supposed to be easy, so to hell with all the silence and the shying away. These memories of hers need to come alive, like _he_ does, like he _will do_ , when she’s finished with this. The clocks will tick and the date will change, all because Amy Pond decided it should do. At the very end of the world the Doctor will come swanning in through that door like he hasn’t missed a single thing; late, and extraordinary as ever. She’s entirely sure of it.

\---

The next morning, the office carriage is covered in memories. Floor to ceiling, bits of paper flutter with the speed of the train taking Amy back and forth through the pyramids. She can’t help but smile at the wall of wonder – pictures of her entire escapade mapped out and shining back at her. The papier mâché TARDIS might sit on her side cabinet, the half finished writing right next to it, but the walls… the walls tell her everything. From the apple with the face on it to the hotel of nightmares, every single day they’ve ever had together is right here, burning bright gold in the morning sun. Star Whales, space-age Spitfires, sunflowers and Stonehenge, she’d spent all night drawing. Sketches of Weeping Angels and vampires flitter next to scenes of Cybermen, explosions, a wooded forest and a bigger on the inside time machine. The sonic screwdriver hangs in the mix, pointing towards the largest picture – a portrait, of a man in a bow tie. Hair in front of his eyes, he smiles at her from the wall, unmoving, like time itself. And still, she smiles back at him. Because she knows now, after weeks of heartache; that there is always hope. And as the Doctor says, hope can give you everything. But doing something about it never hurt anyone either.

\--- 

For the first time in a long time, Amy ventures off the train when it docks at a station. She can’t trust anyone else with the idea swirling at the front of her mind, and with lakes swirling in the sky in this version of reality, the thought is just too good to resist.

If the drawings and the memories can make her smile, then this certainly does – feeling tweed under her finger tips for the first time in forever, picking up a jacket from a local shop and just holding it, bringing it back with her on the train as a little surprise for the man who shines as bright as the sun that’s setting. He smiles at her from the wall, frozen in time, and as Amy takes last look at the broken clock, she smiles too. For she’s convinced, hand on a hanger, bow tie to match, that this is the last day she’ll have to face alone.

Tomorrow, when the stars align, she’ll find him. She can feel it. She’s poured out her entire life into searching, scrabbling around fragmented time for the only one who can fix it, and it’s his turn now. She’s done the crying silently, the praying, the calling out to Santa Claus, and just like that Easter night all those years ago, it’s up to him this time. It’s finally up to him to come back, to save her, to look at straight at the world and smile. Wickedly, just once, before the explosions begin. Before Amy has to hold on tight and never let go, swept up to the ends of the Earth by the man she’s been searching for, waiting for, forever.

\--- 

The day dawns, and the pages flutter. Amy glances at the papier mâché TARDIS, just sitting there as she paces around. She’s always prided herself on being a patient person, but God, she doesn’t know how much more of this she can take. She knows better than anyone that waiting for the Doctor is never easy, but she just hopes that with time in chaos, his general lateness might be kept in check a bit. 

Then of course, it happens.

One of the guards comes rushing in – casting a wary eye at the decorations. He tells her they’ve found something, or _someone_ , deep in London where the smoke screens hang low and the stars shine. There’s a spike in silent activity and an unparalleled level of chaos, and just as he’s rounding off, Amy can’t help but laugh.

_Unparalleled level of chaos._

Sounds an awful lot like someone she knows.

She casts a glance to the pictures on the walls and thinks. It could be a coincidence. The universe is beyond complicated and messy and the best of times, even without all of this going on. But then again, the universe is ridiculous. It’s mad and extraordinary, and actually an awful lot like her, or so the Doctor likes to say. She knows what he thinks about coincidences at any rate – about the people who chose to blindly ignore them. He universe is rarely lazy, and when when two things collide, well, there’s always a reason. They should never be ignored, not even for a second.

She knows it's now or never.

The train clatters to a halt and hammers back the way it came, sliding down the tracks to London. The guards are on high alert for the heist, and Amy is, well, manic. Forget pacing around, she’s practically running at this stage, dashing about, dipping into desk drawers and clattering about in cupboards. Of all the time she’s had to wait for this moment – finally finding the man in her fairy-tales takes its toll, and frankly, she doesn’t know what she’s even going to say to him.

If it is, indeed, _him_.

She doesn’t want to think about that. On all accounts, it could just be a random stranger, some other madcap physician with higher alien intelligence and a desire for calamity. In this time, the population of London is unparalleled, the city a swirling mass of old and new. It could be anyone, and therefore nothing.

But then again, there’s always hope. 

It’s got to be him. It _has_ to be.

After all these months, all the planning and the waiting, there’s no one else that can fit the bill. The Doctor may be a mystery, woven in amongst the fabric of time and space, as unpredictable as the stars themselves, but… Amy knows him. She’s known him since she was seven years old, watched as he turned the world upside down in front of her. She knows what he’s like, and she knows the kinds of things he gets up to. There’s no one else she’d put her money on right now, no one else who would dare cause such catastrophe. Dealing with the Silence head on is dangerous at the best of times, and in all honesty, she knows only the Doctor would dare.

In this reality, where the date never changes and the world’s all back to front, Cairo isn’t far from London. The train pulls into the station and Amy’s all set, eye drive active and stun-gun at the ready. If she’s about to walk into the Doctor’s kind of fun, God knows she better be prepared for it. Casting one final eye at the papier mâché, she smiles a weak smile. 

Oh, raggedy man, she thinks. _I’m coming for you at last_.

\--- 

The smoke clears in the senate room and Amy can’t see a thing. The Silence are hanging from the ceiling and even as the guards run past her, she doesn’t have eyes for them. She’s entirely focused on the figures on the floor, caught up and bewildered in the ambush. 

As insane as it sounds, Roman Emperor Winston Churchill glares at her with some contempt, but the second man, God, well, he might as well be. He stares at her under a fringe of messy hair, and his eyes seem to smile at her, surprised at even finding her here.

With the universe as it is, the probability of Amy Pond and her raggedy Doctor ever meeting again are next to nothing.

But there’s always hope. And there’s always coincidence. Back in an office on a railway train, picture pages flutter.

She doesn’t know how long she stands there, staring, but it’s long enough to make her want to run to him, to hug him like she could never begin to let go. But of course, a reaction like that is beyond predictable, and Amy Pond doesn’t do predictable. Well, not in public, anyway.

\---

The train is whistling back towards Cairo by the time they lock eyes again. The Doctor’s sprawled somewhat ungracefully on the office sofa, and if Amy’s meant to avert her gaze, then she’s not doing so.

Sunlight streams through the window and the engines roar. It’s been far too long. Time and space may not be keeping up, but she’s still been paying attention. Like the tally marks slashed all over his arms, the date count has been stuck in Amy’s mind, incrementally increasing every time the stars come out. 

The last time she saw him, standing on a street corner with tears in his eyes…

How many years has it been since then?

He doesn’t give her the time to answer.

As soon as he awakes, he’s off, scrabbling around exactly like she predicted he would do. He dives headfirst for the model of the TARDIS, gesturing wildly to her about impossibilities and time cracks in the wall of her bedroom. He’s got an almost deranged look in his eyes, as if, after all this time, their meeting isn’t as perfect as he might have hoped it to be.

“ _Amy_ ,” he says, entirely breathlessly, staring right at her, “I know it sounds impossible, but you _know me_."

Well, he’s not wrong.

“In another version of reality, you and I are best friends, we travel together, we have _adventures_.”

She doesn’t know quite why it’s taking him so long to notice the papier mâché he’s wafting around, but it is, on all accounts, quite amusing.

“If you try, if you really, really try, you’ll be able to-” 

Amy just looks at him. Underneath that unkempt hair, his gaze seems to flicker. 

“Oh.” 

He stares at her for what feels like a lifetime, and then past her, at the wall of memories. The pages flicker in the wind of the travelling train, and everything they’ve ever done together gazes back out at him. He tosses the TARDIS to her and she catches it without even looking. 

“ _Oh._ ”

Of all the days she’s spent imagining seeing him again, she’s not at all surprised it’s like this. For all the copper gold and the sunrise she’d dreamt of, his oblivion is much better. While his eyes might not light up like fire, he’s still as ridiculous as he always has been, falling straight into a death trap with nothing but hope to guide the way. Twice now, he’s caused the end of the universe simply by being himself; with a mop in one hand and a fez in the other. She can’t help but smile at the thought of him.

There’s a tweed jacket tucked away in the wardrobe and she wants to throw it at him, have it slung around his shoulders for the first time in forever. Fingers looping through bow ties, well, he’d be _complete_ then, he’d be _hers_ , just like he was the first time she met him. Dearest raggedy man, he may have turned up like the hero in a fairy-tale, but it’s something that’s definitely missing - that mismatched geography teacher look of his. It’s the small things that matter at the end of the end of the world, and she knows that better that anyone.

“You look rubbish.”

It’s all she can think to say. In his state, The Doctor just smiles at her.

“You look _wonderful_.”

Standing in the light of the setting sun, those three words leave Amy’s entirely transfixed. 

Trust him to turn up after all this time, look her right in the eyes and have his glow gold like fire. He might as well extend his hand and offer her all of space and time, because that’s how it feels right now. Deaf to the clacking of train tracks and rushing of steam, it’s like the beginning of everything all over again, and she never wants to look away.

Right now, the world could shatter like the night sky and she wouldn’t even notice. It could stop spinning entirely, fall out of the universe and she wouldn’t bat an eyelid. After everything, this sunset moment they’re having together is worth more than anything. It’s worth the end of the universe itself, so if the darkness sets in and the monsters win, well – she might just let it. It it all comes to pass, then her last day on Earth would have been with him. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

\---

With a sense of finality, the train pulls into the station and the wind drops. Sunlight flickers through the blinds, and, freshly dressed in tweed, the Doctor smiles. He’s looking at her with the brightest eyes, and honestly, there’s nothing left in the universe that can stop her.

She runs to him across the carriage, headfirst – like he does – like all those times when danger closes in and there’s one more battle left to lose. Fingers looping bow ties, ginger hair everywhere, they meet in the middle and he _holds_ her, tightly, like he’s been touch starved.

Hands running over backbones, nuzzling into hair, God, it’s been fair too long. Finally, on the eve of the end of the world, tweed is under her fingertips. She can hear him breathing, feel his twin heartbeats as he grapples with her. Of all the things she wants to tell him, it’s all lost in a speechless haze as worlds collide, arms thrown around each other.

One hand in her hair and the other around her waist, she’s convinced that it’ll ever end. Neither of them will be the first to let go, not on a night like this. He’d told her once, wrapped up just like this:

However hard, however far, I will _find_ you.

He’s yet to break that promise. He may be mad, unpredictable, and prone to running late; but her raggedy man always comes back. _Always._ One way or another. Eventually. 

Outside on the platform, the guards may be preparing for war with the Silence, but here, they’re still standing. He nestles further into her hair and whispers softly.

“Hello, Amelia.” 

She’s convinced she could cry. There they are, finally, those two words. The two words she’d prayed for from the very beginning. From the very first day time went wrong, they’ve been ammunition like no other. Because forget the end of the universe, it’s what it’s all been for; the drawing, the sculpting, all of it. It’s been entirely for him.

_God, I’ve missed you._

It’s all she can think to say. Over his shoulder, she catches sight of the little papier mâché TARDIS, sitting on the table where they both left it.

He tells her quietly that he knows.


End file.
